Tuesday, 28 August 2012

When you MUST wear a cycle helmet

Photo: Oxford Mail

When you are issuing a fixed penalty notice to a cyclist it is very important that you wear a helmet and high viz vest. This will ensure pedestrians can see you and help avoid a collision while you are engaged in taking a zero tolerance to cycling like that

Because let’s face it, pedestrians are a menace. They have no respect at all for cyclists. They walk in a reckless way with total disregard for cyclists. They act like you are invisible. They step out in front of you without warning. They flout red lights and treat cyclists as if they don’t exist. Some of them are very obviously drunk (which is understandable if they live in Stratford or Leyton).

I was cycling through Walthamstow the other day and the lights were at green and all these pedestrians totally ignored the red light and treated me like I wasn’t there. I came very close to being very nearly practically almost killed.

Luckily I managed to weave my way between them and survived (although road weaving is, I know, something which is widely deplored and loses us cyclists some respect).

If you ask me these pedestrians should be insured and have to wear some sort of identification. Most of them are totally irresponsible and wear dark clothing, which means you can hardly see them at all, especially on zebra crossings, which pedestrians should not be using anyway as they are supposed to be for striped African quadrupeds.